Adding Smartboard beneficial for students, Waverly Park principal says
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 25/02/2012 (5065 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
With the touch of a finger, teachers can demonstrate dynamic real-world lessons for their classroom.
The interactive computerized Smartboard has become a staple in modern schools.
“If you’re studying volcanoes and you know there was an eruption … you can call that up on your Smartboard for the kids to see,” said Mark Sefton, chair of the Brandon school board. “It’s real time, it’s right now, it’s what is happening in the student’s world. It’s not some theoretical thing from who knows when.”
By the 2012-13 school year, every classroom from kindergarten to Grade 12 will have its own Smartboard. The initiative began about seven years ago, and the final 48 Smartboards needed to reach that goal were approved in the draft budget at a cost of $160,800 on Tuesday.
“The teachers are using them to access information that supports their lessons,” division Supt. Donna Michaels said. “They’re also using them to visually represent the lessons to students instead of using the traditional … whiteboard, or what used to be the chalkboard.”
One way the Smartboard is used is to show realistic simulations of science experiments.
“Your costs for chemicals, your risk for students goes way down, and you can also provide some more real-world, direct examples of how that chemical reaction is taking place in manufacturing, in science, in medicine all those kinds of things,” Sefton said.
Waverly Park School had one of the first Smartboards in the entire division. Principal Bob Lee said it has been a great tool to add to the classroom.
“Kids are excited about the ability to interact with technology right in front of them,” Lee said. “They use their hands to manipulate and see it on the big screen. You don’t just have three or four students on the computer, the whole class is on the computer.”
Lee said it’s important to keep up with modern technology, and provide students with devices that they have access to at home.
“It doesn’t replace good teaching, it’s a tool that allows kids another opportunity, another way to access not only resources but information and present it in different ways,” Lee said.
» jaustin@brandonsun.com